


ready, able

by rohkeutta



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bearded Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Goats, Kissing, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Black Panther (2018), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Reunions, Wakanda, if you squint really really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta
Summary: Steve snorts, helplessly charmed. “Harold like your gang boss uncle Harold?”“A gentleman does not name his goats and tell,” Bucky says solemnly, but he leans a little more firmly against Steve’s side, and there are crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiles.He’s the best thing Steve has ever seen.





	ready, able

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).



> Big thanks to Alby for enabling and beta, xx
> 
> Title from Ready, Able by Grizzly Bear.

The goats are new.

Steve’s been to Wakanda to see Bucky three times, and until now he’d always been pointed to a village inside the capitol dome and found Bucky hanging out around the lake, getting ribbed by children and looking like Sunday school Jesus in his traditional robes. This time, though, T’Challa himself escorts him to another path leading away from the village, smiles knowingly, and pats Steve’s forearm. “Go over the hill,” T’Challa says. “I think he’s taking a break.”

Steve thanks him and trots off, sweating under the afternoon sun. It’s nice to be out of the uniform and in civilian clothes again, but the lower half of his face is uncomfortably hot under the beard. Maybe Bucky has a cooler he can stick his head into. It’s been two months; who knows what kind of a party hut Bucky’s built in the meantime.

When he ambles over the hill, excitement making him feel like he’s gonna vibrate out of his skin, the first thing he registers isn’t Bucky, but the goats. There’s one standing on the path to the village, its jaw moving in a way that’s eerily similar to when Sam chews with his mouth open, and another one under the tree, curled up on Bucky’s lap like the world’s nastiest horned cat.

He gives the first goat a wide berth, making a careful little half-circle around it, because the only goats he’s met in his life were hanging out around abandoned farmhouses in Bavaria and pretty much half-feral. He’d like to get to Bucky without a chunk of his ass missing. 

But the goat merely glances at him and goes back to chewing, and Steve heads down the hill towards the tree and a pile of firewood next to it, just managing to keep the spring in his step cheery and natural. It probably still looks like he’s loping down to Bucky like an over-eager dog full of love.

Bucky looks  _ stunning _ , even if it’s almost strange to see him in casual, western clothes again: instead of the robes, he’s wearing a pair of high-waisted cargo trousers and a t-shirt, a patterned blue-brown scarf tied around his neck to cover the stump of his left arm. Steve wants to eat him up with a spoon, or maybe put his face into Bucky’s stupidly lush hair and die a happy, happy man.

“Hey Buck,” he says instead, and something cracks open in his chest when Bucky glances up and his face softens into a smile, wide and genuine and happy.

“Hey Steve,” Bucky says. The goat is barely bigger than a baby, snuggled up against Bucky’s stomach, and he carefully extracts his hand from under it to pat the ground next to him. “Come sit down.”

Steve goes obediently, sits down as close as he dares, and then shifts just a little closer until their shoulders touch and the small crease between Bucky’s eyebrows smooths out.

“How have you been?” Steve can’t help it: he stares shamelessly, dragging slowly up from Bucky’s waist to his chest and scruffy jaw, stopping on his curved mouth for a long, marvellous second before continuing up to meet Bucky’s eye.

“Good,” Bucky says. “Throwin’ logs.” He nods towards the pile of firewood and fallen branches. “Making friends.” He pets the small goat on his lap carefully, and it lets out a pitiful little  _ bah. _

“You’ve been busy,” Steve agrees. Bucky looks pleased and peaceful, no longer pale and sallow like he was fresh out of cryo. He’s gotten tanned and a lot leaner than he was when he went under, and Steve aches hard for him and this new, steadier life he has.

“There’s so many things I don’t know,” Bucky says softly. “And so many things I can help with, even with just one hand. It’s good, Steve. It’s really, really good.”

“I’m glad,” Steve says honestly. His hand is resting on his thigh, and Bucky puts his own over it, squeezing gently. Steve tries not to read too much into it.

The contentment in Bucky is so palpable, rare and cherished, and Steve desperately wishes that he could've been there with Bucky for every step of the way, learning things, being helpful. He feels tired to the bone, spread thin by duty and life on the lam, and the dream of getting to wake up to Bucky’s sleep-slack face every morning for the rest of his life has been keeping him going for longer than he likes to admit to himself.

“Do the goats have names?” Steve asks, suddenly eager to change the subject.

“I can’t pronounce them,” Bucky confesses, scratching his temple sheepishly. “I’m still getting to know the language, but that one,” he points at the chewy guy on the path, “is called something that translates either as Reverend Sonofabitch or Harold. So I’m calling him Harold, just to be safe.”

Steve snorts, helplessly charmed. “Harold like your gang boss uncle Harold?” 

“A gentleman does not name his goats and tell,” Bucky says solemnly, but he leans a little more firmly against Steve’s side, and there are crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiles.

He’s the best thing Steve has ever seen.

“How about this one?” he asks, pointing down at the baby goat, to cover the way his whole body wants to lurch onto Bucky’s lap and never leave.

“I call him Marvin,” Bucky says, and Steve automatically flips through his mental catalogue of Bucky’s extended family and comes up empty.

“Who the hell is Marvin?”

“A robot,” Bucky says. “In  _ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. _ Haven’t you read a single book since you came back? I was told it was a classic so I read it. Terrific stuff.”

Steve frowns. “Who told you that?”

Bucky shrugs. “Some kid named Jesus, in Buenos Aires, after he tried to mug me.”

“Jesus tried to mug you?”

“Yep,” Bucky confirms. “Gave me money instead, said I was a sorry sight. Recommended some books. Told me to stop carrying hand grenades around, after I threatened to put one down his pants.”

Steve opens his mouth, thinks better of it, and then blurts it out anyway. “Christianity sure ain’t paying much nowadays.”

There’s a long, pregnant silence, before Bucky makes an incredible, ugly snorting sound that Steve’s heard in his dreams dozens of times, and then he’s laughing with his full body, shaking against Steve’s flank.

“Fuck,” he wheezes through the laughter. “Fuck, Rogers, your sense of humor surely ain’t gotten any better.”

“Made you laugh, though,” Steve says around his dumb, gigantic smile, and Marvin makes a protesting  _ baaahh _ at being jostled.

Bucky kisses him, then, twisting towards Steve with his whole body, the goat and all, and pushes his hand into Steve’s hair, fingers pressing against the skull. 

Bucky kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, and Steve’s pawing at him helplessly; for his lean, strong body that’s so familiar even after all these years and numerous sorrows. Bucky turns further into him, startling the goat away, and then he’s falling onto Steve’s lap, all one hundred and one years of him, and he smells so good, like sweat and spices and sun-warmed savannah; and Steve holds him, and doesn't let go.

*

“Someday you’re gonna bring a war with you,” Bucky says, later, his head pillowed on Steve’s thighs. His eyes are closed, and Steve’s been cataloging the faint freckles scattered on the bridge of his nose for the better part of an hour, transfixed and content. 

Harold has wandered off, but Marvin has plastered himself to Bucky’s side; Steve’s pretty sure he’s snoring.

His hand in Bucky's hair stalls as the words sink in, and Bucky opens his eyes, pale and green-grey like frosted glass, looking up at him. 

“Stay,” Bucky says, quieter. “Please. Let me keep this just a little longer. Let me keep  _ you _ just a little longer.”

Steve closes his eyes and thinks about the stolen quinjet, about Sam and Nat who will be waiting for him in their rendezvous point in Dresden in four days’ time, and says, “I’ll stay as long as I can.”

“I’ll take that,” Bucky says, and leans up for a kiss.

**

**Author's Note:**

> _Five years, countless months and a loan_   
>  _Hope I'm ready, able to make my own, good home_   
>  _They go we go, I want you to know, what I did I did,_   
>  _They go we go, I want you to know, what I did I did._
> 
>  
> 
> [Ready, Able](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMPUk2BcQrg)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> My tumblr is [here](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com).


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